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Better methods are necessary to fully account for anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems and the essential services provided by ecosystems that sustain human life. Current methods for assessing sustainability, such as life cycle assessment (LCA), typically focus on easily quantifiable indicators such as air emissions with no accounting for the essential

Better methods are necessary to fully account for anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems and the essential services provided by ecosystems that sustain human life. Current methods for assessing sustainability, such as life cycle assessment (LCA), typically focus on easily quantifiable indicators such as air emissions with no accounting for the essential ecosystem benefits that support human or industrial processes. For this reason, more comprehensive, transparent, and robust methods are necessary for holistic understanding of urban technosphere and ecosphere systems, including their interfaces. Incorporating ecosystem service indicators into LCA is an important step in spanning this knowledge gap.

For urban systems, many built environment processes have been investigated but need to be expanded with life cycle assessment for understanding ecosphere impacts. To pilot these new methods, a material inventory of the building infrastructure of Phoenix, Arizona can be coupled with LCA to gain perspective on the impacts assessment for built structures in Phoenix. This inventory will identify the origins of materials stocks, and the solid and air emissions waste associated with their raw material extraction, processing, and construction and identify key areas of future research necessary to fully account for ecosystem services in urban sustainability assessments. Based on this preliminary study, the ecosystem service impacts of metropolitan Phoenix stretch far beyond the county boundaries. A life cycle accounting of the Phoenix’s embedded building materials will inform policy and decision makers, assist with community education, and inform the urban sustainability community of consequences.

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As average temperatures and occurrences of extreme heat events increase in the Southwest, the water infrastructure that was designed to operate under historical temperature ranges may become increasingly vulnerable to component and operational failures. For each major component along the life cycle of water in an urban water infrastructural system,

As average temperatures and occurrences of extreme heat events increase in the Southwest, the water infrastructure that was designed to operate under historical temperature ranges may become increasingly vulnerable to component and operational failures. For each major component along the life cycle of water in an urban water infrastructural system, potential failure events and their semi-quantitative probabilities of occurrence were estimated from interview responses of water industry professionals. These failure events were used to populate event trees to determine the potential pathways to cascading failures in the system. The probabilities of the cascading failure scenarios under future conditions were then calculated and compared to the probabilities of scenarios under current conditions to assess the increased vulnerability of the system. We find that extreme heat events can increase the vulnerability of water systems significantly and that there are ways for water infrastructure managers to proactively mitigate these vulnerabilities before problems occur.

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Description
This dissertation advances the capability of water infrastructure utilities to anticipate and adapt to vulnerabilities in their systems from temperature increase and interdependencies with other infrastructure systems. Impact assessment models of increased heat and interdependencies were developed which incorporate probability, spatial, temporal, and operational information. Key findings from the models

This dissertation advances the capability of water infrastructure utilities to anticipate and adapt to vulnerabilities in their systems from temperature increase and interdependencies with other infrastructure systems. Impact assessment models of increased heat and interdependencies were developed which incorporate probability, spatial, temporal, and operational information. Key findings from the models are that with increased heat the increased likelihood of water quality non-compliances is particularly concerning, the anticipated increases in different hardware components generate different levels of concern starting with iron pipes, then pumps, and then PVC pipes, the effects of temperature increase on hardware components and on service losses are non-linear due to spatial criticality of components, and that modeling spatial and operational complexity helps to identify potential pathways of failure propagation between infrastructure systems. Exploring different parameters of the models allowed for comparison of institutional strategies. Key findings are that either preventative maintenance or repair strategies can completely offset additional outages from increased temperatures though-- improved repair times reduce overall duration of outages more than preventative maintenance, and that coordinated strategies across utilities could be effective for mitigating vulnerability.
ContributorsBondank, Emily (Author) / Chester, Mikhail V (Thesis advisor) / Ruddell, Benjamin L (Committee member) / Johnson, Nathan G (Committee member) / Seager, Thomas P (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description

In the economic crisis Detroit has been enduring for many decades, a unique crisis has emerged with the provision of water that is normally not seen in the developed world. The oversized, deteriorating, and underfunded water provision system has been steadily accruing debt for the water utility since population began

In the economic crisis Detroit has been enduring for many decades, a unique crisis has emerged with the provision of water that is normally not seen in the developed world. The oversized, deteriorating, and underfunded water provision system has been steadily accruing debt for the water utility since population began to decrease in the 1950s. As a result, the utility has instated rate increases and aggressive water shut off policies for non-paying residents. Residents have consequentially claimed that their human right to water has been breeched.

In this report, I analyze possible solutions to the water crisis from both the water utility and resident perspectives. Since all utility management solutions have very serious limitations on either side of the argument, I have chosen a set of technologies to consider as a part of an impact mitigation plan that can provide alternative sources of water for the people who no longer can rely on municipal water. I additionally propose an adaptive management plan to evaluate the effects of using these technologies in the long-term. The monitoring of the effects of technological mitigations might also help determine if sustainability (efficiency and equity) could be an attainable long-term solution to Detroit’s water crisis.